Employers must ensure respect for equal pay among their employees. Estelle Trichet, co-head of Walter France’s Social working group, alerts managers to case law which condemned a company for a minimal difference in salary that it was unable to justify.
In 1996, the Court of Cassation established the principle “for equal work, equal pay”, which consists of aiming for equal pay between employees in an identical situation within a company. By remuneration, this means the salary and all other benefits and accessories paid, directly or indirectly, in cash or in kind, by the employer to the worker due to the latter's employment. Consequently, the employer must apply equal pay for all employees placed in an identical situation, that is to say having the same position, the same tasks and the same responsibilities. Work that requires employees to have a comparable set of professional knowledge established by a title is considered to have equal value., a diploma or professional practice, or a comparable set of capabilities derived from acquired experience, responsibilities and physical or nervous load.
Differences in treatment must be justified by objective reasons
The Labor Code and case law have accepted that certain objective reasons could justify the difference in treatment between two or more employees, in particular diplomas attesting to specific knowledge necessary for the exercise of the position occupied, seniority (if this is not already taken into account by the payment of a seniority bonus), professional experience, carrying out larger tasks with particular technicality, responsibilities (for example a supervisory role)or professional qualities. In this case decided by the Court of Cassation in 2024*, an employee, recognized as a disabled worker since 1998, was hired as a winder assistant from June 16, 2005 by an industrial paper mill. He was dismissed on November 16, 2016 for disciplinary reasons. He referred various requests to the industrial tribunal for the execution and termination of his employment contract., including damages for pay discrimination. The Nancy Court of Appeal, in 2021, proved him right, by deducing the existence of discrimination from the sole difference of 10 cents per hour between the amount of a bonus paid to the employee and that of a bonus allocated to another member of staff.
Absolute equal pay must be respected
The court of appeal which, after noting that the employee complained of salary discrimination based on his situation as a disabled worker, found that his remuneration was lower than that of his work colleague performing the same work, thus showing that this element gave rise to the presumption of the existence of discrimination. The Court of Cassation validated the decision of the Court of Appeal which found, in the exercise of its sovereign power of appreciation, that the employer did not demonstrate that this difference in treatment was justified by elements unrelated to any discrimination on grounds of disability. For Estelle Trichet, “employers must be particularly vigilant about respecting equal treatment between employees, and particularly when even minimal differences in remuneration cannot be justified by one of the objective reasons indicated in the preamble. »
* Court of Cassation. February 14, 2024, n° 22-10.513
